Indigenous Communications

Ashley Wickham

Serious lack of attention has been given to communication in the Pacific Islands. This shows itself in uncertainty and insecurity which affect the Islanders' interactions with the world economic system. The following articles describes how the language of the media and their training schemes are premised on failed modernisation theories, and argues the case for higher level initiatives to develop local communication systems. The author indicates who should take the lead towards this and concludes that Unesco should be at the forefront of initiatives.

Colin Nicholas

Loss of control over the communication system can profoundly affects a subordinate people's culture causing them to lose their cultural and civilisational autonomy, and transforming them from cultural creators to passive users, consumers, and alienated reproducers of a foreign culture. The author of the following article illustrates his argument with reference to the Orang Asli, an indigenous people of Malaysia.

Carlos Morales

Honest journalism can play a key role in avoiding the trap of false democracy, argues the author of the following article. In the context of Latin America, people must be educated to recognise and promote journalism that is 'not afraid of ideas', in which truth is practised not just preached.

Barry Lowe

How are countries that have emerged from long-periods of Communism faring in their bid to ensure freedom of expression in the media? The following article looks at the case of Mongolia, using interviews with local communication professionals. It argues that journalism training on the basis of Western models may be the only way of providing a truly independent and responsible press.

Philip Lee

In the present climate of disillusionment, politicians are viewed with suspicion and disbelief, and the mass media evoke scepticism and mistrust. This lack of trust mirrors the absence of truth in public life. Echoing Pilate's question, the author asks what does truth really mean? Is it permanent and universal, or temporal and local? Using case studies from the medieval Crusades to the recent 'peace treaty' in Guatemala, the conclusion is that truth is often the victim of overriding political and economic circumstances: truth to be discovered in context. But truth is more than a contextual jigsaw puzzle. The current crisis of credibility can only be redeemed by a culture in which the mass media bear witness to the truth.

Chenjerai Hove

The Shona people of Zimbabwe have traditions that still challenge the coming of mass media. In the following article, the author mentions ways in which traditional communication interacts with modern technologies. That interaction is not always smooth.

Charles Harper

In the context of sharp reminders in the public media of accountability for past actions, the following article underlines the terrible proximity of the past and highlights the stubborn global longevity of official violence in all its forms. Using Latin America as a focal point, it stresses the persistent need of succeeding generations to ferret out and make known the full truth of past acts so morally repugnant and juridically unacceptable that they require justice. Knowing the truth as experienced by victims and requiring an accounting of it, affirms that which constitutes the hope of the human rights struggle - a re-emergence of ordinary and extraordinary women and men who constantly spring up in each generation to work for justice and human dignity.

Moacir Gadotti

A tribute to Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator, who died 2 May 1997 aged 75. In a series of pioneering books he argued that culture was used as an instrument of oppression by means of which the elite imposed its values on the uneducated masses. In its place he proposed a 'pedagogy of the oppressed', in which the process of learning to read and write was also the means of empowerment for the poor.

Francisco Calí

En el nuevo proceso de paz que se vive en Guatemala en particular, como en otras regiones, que están buscando por el camino del diálogo y negociación una solución a los problemas que enfrentan sus comunidades, el autor del siguiente texto quisiera compartir algunos elementos que los Pueblos Indígenas creen son importantes para entender lo que sucede en su país.

Tiga Bayles

Radio for Indigenous communities in Australia began in the early 1980s when 'it became apparent to Indigenous People that we were being neglected and ignored by media, be it community radio stations or the mainstream media. We were without a voice, and here was this network of so-called community stations, all around the country, that were supposed to be there for community access radio, but there weren't any Indigenous voices or programmes on any of these stations that we were aware of, that we could identify.' The author of the following article, himself an Aboriginal and manager of a community radio station, describes recent developments in Australia.